Help us spread the word about the upcoming K12Online Conference 2007. Please share either three (3) reasons to participate based on your experience from last year or (if you didn't attend last year) three (3) things you hope to gain from the experience this year.

If you are new to memes--when you are tagged-- simply create a blog post where you link to the flickr photo below:

<img src="http://www.flickr.com/photos/snbeach/1438944952/">

Write your 3 reasons and tag several others who will do the same thing. After you tag someone in your post, please email them to let them know so they can help spread the word.

My Three Reasons

(1) It's Free!

(2) It's "just in time". Learn what you want when you want from some of the brightest lights in 21st century learning from across the globe.

(3) Camaraderie. Connect with like minded educators from across the world. Open your eyes to new ways of teaching and learning and make friends with some of the nicest people anywhere from everywhere. The personal learning networks and friendships you form will last a life time.

Tag: You're It! (you're not really "it", it's your turn ;-) ...)

Ewan McIntosh


Alan November


George Seimens


Terry Freedman


James Farmer


Leigh Blackall

... and anyone else who would like to help us spread the word ... you're it too.

View CC license

Lani and I gave an overview of K12 Online from the perspective of developing personal learning networks. Lani made most of the slides, here they are:

There was a lively chat going on throughout our talk, which I think was the best part of the whole thing. The Discovery Educator Network hosts Webinars (seminars on the web) using WebEx software which supports a chat window for participants to talk to each other during the presentation and ask questions of the presenters. At the same time David Jakes was hosting a chatcast in skype and some folks (there were 50 people in the room at one point) were continuing the discussion over on twitter. Talk about your web 2.0 globally connected goodness! ;-)

We've also archived the presentation and various links and resources we discussed on the K12 Online 2007 Take Away Wiki. I captured the chat from the WebEx environment and archived it there. If anyone grabbed the skype chat please send it my way or drop it into the wiki yourself.

We also published a version of the presentation on Google's latest addition to the Google Docs suite, Presently (online collaborative presentation tool). While there are a number of bugs, or inconveniences, that need to be worked out of Presently (downloading a copy to your hard drive isn't straight forward, customizing slides background colour with a colour picker tool, live chat while two or more people collaborate on the doc are all features that need some improvement) it does have one very nice feature. When a presentation is published and simultaneously viewed by more than one person, live chat is automatically enabled. I hope the chat can be copied and saved, or perhaps just archived in a user's gmail account, but I really like the idea of a presentation with life after the presentation. If you head over there now, and someone else is watching it at the same time, you can chat with each other about it; live.

During the presentation I talked briefly about how using free online tools allows us control over time and space that we didn't have before. Learning can be shifted to any convenient time or space. With the the chat feature of Google Docs' new presentation tool, chatcasts can continue to be made, spontaneously. I hope if anyone does that they add the chats they create to the archive we've begun on the wiki.

This all turns around what I think are the emerging pedagogies related to teaching and learning with read/write web tools:

• » Make thinking transparent.


• » Publish artifacts of learning, particularly thoughts in the rough; we learn most from our mistakes.


• » Create content and share it with the goal of educating others.


• » Use tools that allow for shifting time and space for learning; facilitate "just in time" learning.


• » ...

What underlying pedagogical principles to teaching with the read/write web would you add to this list?

Update


I just checked out the google docs chat feature in Presently. The chat text cannot be selected, copied or saved. That's not good. Another inconvenience that needs to be improved. ;-)

Mirrored from the K12 Online Conference site.

---

There has been a bit of a glitch with the proposal submission form. It seems it is only accepting one submission from each IP address. The last submission overwrites the earlier written material.

The deadline for submissions is extended until Friday, June 22.

For all who made or would like to make multiple proposal submissions:

1. Your final submission has been received.

UPDATE

We fixed the form! It will now accept multiple submissions.

If you did not receive a confirmation email from Lani on June 19, please resubmit your proposal. Then contact Lani by email (lanihall {at} alltel {dot} net) to verify it’s been received.

We apologize for the inconvenience. Thanks for your patience and understanding. The deadline remains extended until Friday, June 22.


/Update

2. Please email any other submissions to the convener of the strand for which the proposal is submitted.

To all who have not yet submitted a proposal:

1. The deadline is extended until Friday, June 22.


2. You’re encouraged to submit a proposal to present. Personal Learning Networks, in particular, could benefit from your expertise.

For your convenience, here is the list of conveners:

• » Convener Classroom 2.0
  
  
  Darren Kuropatwa: dkuropatwa {at} gmail {dot} com


• » Convener Personal Learning Networks
  
  
  Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach: snbeach {at} cox {dot} net


• » Convener Obstacles to Opportunities
  
  
  Lani Ritter Hall: lanihall {at} alltel {dot} net


• » Convener New Tools
  
  
  Wesley Fryer: wesfryer {at} pobox {dot} com

With only 7 days left to submit proposals Lani, Sheryl, Wes and I are honored to announce the keynotes for K12 Online 2007. We eagerly anticipate the kick off of the conference and each strand by the following distinguished and accomplished educators. "New Tools" features 3 co-keynoters.

	Preconference Keynote: David Warlick David Warlick, a 30 year educator,has been a classroom teacher, district administrator, and staff consultant with the North Carolina State Department of Public Instruction. For the past ten years, Mr. Warlick has operated The Landmark Project, a consulting, and innovations firm in Raleigh, North Carolina. His web site, Landmarks for Schools, serves more than ten-million visits a month with some of the most popular teacher tools available on the Net. David is also the author of three books on instructional technology and 21st century literacy, and has spoken to audiences throughout the U.S., Europe, Asia, and South America. David blogs at http://davidwarlick.com/2cents/.
	Classroom 2.0: Clarence Fisher Clarence has been a classroom teacher for the past 13 years. He blogs professionally at remoteaccess.typepad.com, with his class at mr-fisher.edublogs.org and has spoken at conferences across North America. Clarence has won several awards, including one of Canada’s highest teaching awards, the Prime Minister’s Award for Teaching for his integration of technology into daily classroom life. Clarence's innovative classroom practices have been featured online, in books, magazines, and newspaper articles. He is an advocate of classroom 2.0, learning spaces that take complete advantage of the tools that are available to learners in their quest to learn rather than having school be something that is done to them.
	New Tools: The Three Amigos: Alan Levine Alan Levine Vice President, NMC Community and CTO for the New Media Consortium (NMC), an international consortium of more than 250 world-class universities, colleges, museums, research centers, and technology companies dedicated to using new technologies to inspire, energize, stimulate, and support learning and creative expression. He is widely recognized nationally and internationally for expertise in the application of new technologies to educational environments and was a pioneer on the web going back to 1993. Alan blogs at http://cogdogblog.com.
	New Tools: The Three Amigos: Brian Lamb Brian Lamb is Manager, Emerging Technologies and Digital Content with the Office of Learning Technology at The University of British Columbia. He teaches a course on “Text Technologies” for UBC’s Master of Educational Technology Program. He is also a Research Fellow with Utah State University’s Center for Open and Sustainable Learning. Brian maintains his weblog Abject Learning http://weblogs.elearning.ubc.ca/brian/, where he mutters ll-tempered observations on social learning, open education, disruptive technologies and other such things.
	New Tools: The Three Amigos: D'Arcy Norman D'arcy Norman is a software developer at the Teaching & Learning Centre, a service department at The University of Calgary. In his current primary role, as an educational technology developer, he explores new technologies and works with faculty to implement tools for blended learning. He has also been involved in the open source development of the Pachyderm project, an easy-to-use multimedia authoring tool. D'Arcy spends a fair amount of time thinking (and rethinking) about the concept of control and copyright, and how they might affect academia. D'Arcy blogs at http://www.darcynorman.net.
	Personal Learning Networks: Derek Wenmouth Derek is currently the Director of eLearning at CORE Education Ltd based in Christchurch, New Zealand. He has a broad background in education, with experience at the primary and secondary school level, and as a teacher educator. He was manager of the eSection at The Correspondence School in Wellington and is currently an adviser to the Ministry of Education. Derek is a regular speaker at conferences and seminars, and maintains a regular blog where he shares his ideas and thinking across a range of areas relating to the use of ICT in teaching and learning. Derek blogs at http://blog.core-ed.net/derek.
	Obstacles to Opportunities: Brian Cosby Brian Crosby, an elementary teacher for 26 years, teaches fifth grade in Sparks, Nevada, and has infused technology into teaching since the 1980's. While piloting a 1:1 laptop program, students in his class utilizie many Web 2.0 tools including Skype, Fiickr, blogs and wikis. His award winning student produced video about including a classmate that couldn't attend school using video-conferencing software has been downloaded by thousands. Brian teaches several popular tech classes for teachers in his role as a Nevada Writing Project Consultant. You can try keeping up with him on his blog "Learning Is Messy" at http://www.learningismessy.com/blog/.

We strongly encourage you to join these educators at the conference by sharing your take on "playing with boundaries" in the use of Web 2.0 tools in classrooms and professional practice! It's time to submit your proposal. The deadline is June 18, only 7 days away!

For your convenience, you can find the initial call for proposals here and the link to the proposals submission form is here.

Announcing the second annual "K12 Online" conference for teachers, administrators and educators around the world interested in the use of Web 2.0 tools in classrooms and professional practice! This year's conference is scheduled to be held over two weeks, October 15-19 and October 22-26 of 2007, and will include a preconference keynote during the week of October 8. This years conference theme is "Playing with Boundaries." A call for proposals is below.

OVERVIEW:


There will be four "conference strands"-- two each week. Two presentations will be published in each strand each day, Monday - Friday, so four new presentations will be available each day over the course of the two-weeks. Each presentation will be given in any of a variety of downloadable, web based formats and released via the conference blog (www.k12onlineconference.org) and archived for posterity.

FOUR STRANDS:


Week 1


Strand A: Classroom 2.0


Leveraging the power of free online tools in an open, collaborative and transparent atmosphere characterises teaching and learning in the 21st century. Teachers and students are contributing to the growing global knowledge commons by publishing their work online. By sharing all stages of their learning students are beginning to appreciate the value of life long learning that inheres in work that is in "perpetual beta." This strand will explore how teachers and students are playing with the boundaries between instructors, learners and classrooms. Presentations will also explore the practical pedagogical uses of online social tools (Web 2.0) giving concrete examples of how teachers are using the tools in their classes.

Strand B: New Tools


Focusing on free tools, what are the "nuts and bolts" of using specific new social media and collaborative tools for learning? This strand includes two parts. Basic training is "how to" information on tool use in an educational setting, especially for newcomers. Advanced training is for teachers interested in new tools for learning, looking for advanced technology training, seeking ideas for mashing tools together, and interested in web 2.0 assessment tools. As educators and students of all ages push the boundaries of learning, what are the specific steps for using new tools most effectively? Where "Classroom 2.0" presentations will focus on instructional uses and examples of web 2.0 tool use, "New Tools" presentations should focus on "nuts and bolts" instructions for using tools. Five "basic" and five "advanced" presentations will be included in this strand.

Week 2


Strand A: Professional Learning Networks


Research says that professional development is most effective when it aims to create professional learning communities — places where teachers learn and work together. Using Web 2.0 tools educators can network with others around the globe extending traditional boundaries of ongoing, learner centered professional development and support. Presentations in this strand will include tips, ideas and resources on how to orchestrate your own professional development online; concrete examples of how the tools that support Professional Learning Environments (PLEs) are being used; how to create a supportive, reflective virtual learning community around school-based goals, and trends toward teacher directed personal learning environments.

Strand B: Obstacles to Opportunities


Boundaries formalized by education in the “industrial age” shouldn’t hinder educators as they seek to reform and transform their classroom practice. Playing with boundaries in the areas of copyright, digital discipline and ethics (e.g. cyberbullying), collaborating globally (e.g. cultural differences, synchronous communication), resistance to change (e.g. administration, teachers, students), school culture (e.g. high stakes testing), time (e.g. in curriculum, teacher day), lack of access to tools/computers, filtering, parental/district concerns for online safety, control (e.g. teacher control of student behavior/learning), solutions for IT collaboration and more -- unearthing opportunities from the obstacles rooted in those boundaries -- is the focus of presentations in this strand.

CALL FOR PROPOSALS:


This call encourages all, experienced and novice, to submit proposals to present at this conference via this link. Take this opportunity to share your successes, strategies, and tips in “playing with boundaries” in one of the four strands as described above.

Deadline for proposal submissions is June 18, 2007. You will be contacted no later than June 30, 2007 regarding your status.

Presentations may be delivered in any web-based medium that is downloadable (including but not limited to podcasts, screencasts, slide shows) and is due one week prior to the date it is published.

Please note that all presentations will be licensed Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported.

As you draft your proposal, you may wish to consider the presentation topics listed below which were suggested in the comments on the K-12 Online Conference Blog:

• » special needs education


• » Creative Commons


• » Second Life


• » podcasting


• » iPods


• » video games in education


• » specific ideas, tips, mini lessons centered on pedagogical use of web 2.0 tools


• » overcoming institutional inertia and resistance


• » aligning Web 2.0 and other projects to national standards


• » getting your message across


• » how web 2.0 can assist those with disabilities


• » ePortfolios


• » classroom 2.0 activities at the elementary level


• » creating video for TeacherTube and YouTube


• » google docs


• » teacher/peer collaboration

KEYNOTES:


The first presentation in each strand will kick off with a keynote by a well known educator who is distinguished and knowledgeable in the context of their strand. Keynoters will be announced shortly.

CONVENERS:


This year's conveners are:

Darren Kuropatwa is currently Department Head of Mathematics at Daniel Collegiate Institute in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. He is known internationally for his ability to weave the use of online social tools meaningfully and concretely into his pedagogical practice and for "child safe" blogging practices. He has more than 20 years experience in both formal and informal education and 13 years experience in team building and leadership training. Darren has been facilitating workshops for educators in groups of 4 to 300 for the last 10 years. Darren's professional blog is called A Difference (http://adifference.blogspot.com). He will convene Classroom 2.0.

Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach, a 20-year educator, has been a classroom teacher, charter school principal, district administrator, and digital learning consultant. She currently serves as an adjunct faculty member teaching graduate and undergraduate preservice teachers at The College of William and Mary (Virginia, USA), where she is also completing her doctorate in educational planning, policy and leadership. In addition, Sheryl is co-leading a statewide 21st Century Skills initiative in the state of Alabama, funded by a major grant from the Microsoft Partners in Learning program. Sheryl blogs at (http://21stcenturylearning.typepad.com/blog/). She will convene Preconference Discussions and Personal Learning Networks.

Wesley Fryer is an educator, author, digital storyteller and change agent. With respect to school change, he describes himself as a "catalyst for creative educational engagement." His blog, “Moving at the Speed of Creativity” was selected as the 2006 “Best Learning Theory Blog” by eSchoolnews and Discovery Education. He is the Director of Education Advocacy (PK-20) for AT&T in the state of Oklahoma. Wes blogs at (http://www.speedofcreativity.org). Wes will convene New Tools.

Lani Ritter Hall currently contracts as an instructional designer for online professional development for Ohio teachers and online student courses with eTech Ohio. She is a National Board Certified Teacher who served in many capacities during her 35 years as a classroom and resource teacher in Ohio and Canada. Lani blogs at (http://possibilitiesabound.blogspot.com). Lani will convene Obstacles to Opportunities.

QUESTIONS?


If you have any questions about any part of this, email one of us:

• » Darren Kuropatwa: dkuropatwa {at} gmail {dot} com


• » Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach: snbeach {at} cox {dot} net


• » Lani Ritter Hall: lanihall {at} alltel {dot} net


• » Wesley Fryer: wesfryer {at} pobox {dot} com

Please duplicate this post and distribute it far and wide across the blogosphere. Feel free to republish it on your own blog (actually, we'd really like people to do that ;-) ) or link back to this post (published simultaneously on all our blogs).

Conference Tag: K12online07